1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid ejecting apparatus, and particularly to a liquid ejecting apparatus which is useful to be applied to prevent satellite of liquid droplets ejected from a nozzle from generating.
2. Related Art
An ink jet type recording apparatus is proposed which ejects ink in a pressure chamber from a nozzle as droplets by changing a pressure of the pressure chamber using a pressure generation element of a piezoelectric vibrator, a heating element or the like. In this type of recording apparatus, when the ink in the pressure chamber of an ink jet type recording head is pressurized, a liquid column is projected from a base surface of the liquid in the nozzle. A front end portion of the liquid column is ejected as main droplets, a tail portion of the liquid column (a rear end portion of the liquid column) is ejected as satellite droplets smaller than the main droplets. The satellite droplets are deposited in an unintended position on a deposition object (for example, a recording sheet), whereby decreasing an accuracy (for example, a printing accuracy) of a deposition position, or the satellite droplets becomes drifting mists, whereby contaminating a liquid ejecting apparatus. Thus, it is necessary to suppress the generation of the satellite droplets.
JP-A-11-170518 discloses a technology that a piezoelectric element for ejecting ink droplets, and a piezoelectric element for preventing satellite droplets are provided in a single pressure chamber. When ejected, after the ink column is formed by projecting the ink from a nozzle by driving the piezoelectric element for ejecting ink droplets, and the ink column is cut off by projecting a rear end portion of the ink column by driving the piezoelectric element for preventing satellite droplets, thereby suppressing the generation of the satellite droplets.
In the technology of JP-A-11-170518, the piezoelectric element for preventing the satellite droplets is provided in addition to the piezoelectric element for ejecting the ink droplets. Thus, the structure is complicated and it is necessary to individually drive multiple piezoelectric elements, respectively.
In addition, such a problem exists not only in an ink jet type recording apparatus, but also in a liquid ejecting apparatus which ejects liquid except for the ink.